Not Looking For Love: Episode 2 Read Online Free Page A

we're just playing. I punch down hard on his forearm, my knuckles cracking painfully. His smell bores into me, dampening my urge to flee. But that can't happen. "Let me go."
    "Can we talk, Gail?" He's still holding me, but not very tightly, and I could break away and run. But what for? I should finish what I started or it will never be over. Maybe I even owe him a little.
    I twist from his arms. "Did you follow me here?"
    His eyes are a gleaming blue today, like the ocean in summertime, a gentle breeze pushing the sailboats along toward the horizon.
    "Yes, I did," he says. His lip is slightly swollen around a nasty black scab. I'm sorry I bit him that hard, but it's a fleeting feeling.  
    "There isn't much to say, Scott, now is there?"
    He looks directly into my eyes, the intensity of his gaze making me tingle as though lightning just struck right next to me. "I never should have treated you like that, Gail. I'm so sorry."
    "No you shouldn't have," I snap. "But you did and it happened. You can't just take it back."
    I don't know where my anger is coming from, I was sure I shut that lid down tight. Shivers pass through me, but they're on the inside, my hands and my voice are completely steady.
    He drops his head and runs his hand over his hair, looking upwards at me. "You just came at the wrong moment, and I…I don't know what happened. But it won't ever happen again."
    There's such conviction in his voice, I believe him. "I'm sure that's what every battered woman believes, at least in the beginning."
    Shock makes his eyes wide, and his cheek twitches a little. "I didn't hurt you, did I? Not really?"
    It didn't hurt. It was wild and rough and everything I wanted from him, back in the beginning. But not last night. The realization feels like a slap. I can't keep talking to him. I'm just dumb and mental enough to accept his apology.  
    "Don't worry about it, Scott. I'm fine and I'll get over it." What hurt the most was the way he kicked me out. But that's gone too now, just a memory, not something that touches me.
    "Will you? 'Cause I don't know if I will," he says, searching my face, his eyes expectant like a child's.
    "That's not really my problem," I say harshly, wanting to end this pointless, dangerous conversation.
    "I want to get to know you better, Gail."
    "Look, Scott," I say, steel in my voice now, coming from the thought of laying beside the love of my life, waiting for them to die, nothing I can do to stop it. "We were both right to push each other away. We just weren't right about it on the same day."
    He rubs the back of his neck and looks past me toward the sea. "You think so? I think maybe we were both wrong."  
    He turns back to me, his eyes pleading. It has to stop. Now. "I had no intention of ever getting to know you, Scott. I thought I was clear on that. Now stop following me and stop coming to my house. Whatever it was, it's over."
    "If you're sure, Gail." His eyes are frozen now, like looking at a glacier. There's no anger there, no sadness, nothing of anything. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks away. And I fight it, but a part of me wants to run after him and start this conversation again, end it differently. But that part of me is the weak, crazy Gail. This Gail is strong and feels nothing at all.

CHAPTER FOUR

    I make the drive to Gran's retirement home as soon as Dad comes home at lunchtime on Friday. Yesterday on the beach, after Scott left, that old lady was looking at me all the way back to my car, like she wanted to hug and comfort me. And all I kept thinking of was Gran, who lost the love of her life, her husband, and will now soon lose her daughter.
    The drive to her retirement home usually takes about forty-five minutes, but I make it in thirty, speeding all the way there. I can stay for an hour or so and still beat the grid-lock back home.
    Gran is sitting in a plush, old-style armchair gazing out the window in her room. A thick woolen carpet covers the floor, and her four poster